Unexpected Beginnings
by SamFuckingJaywalker
Summary: Skai, who you should know from "Falling" by thezeroespada, is badass at the Seireitei and beats up Renji. A lot.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach any more than I am a wizard. Sigh.**

**A/N: In order to understand this fic to the fullest, go read **_**Falling**_ **by thezeroespada. Once this fic concludes, go read **_**The New Fourth Seat**_ **by ZeroTheFearless. To continue the storyline of **_**Falling, **_**read **_**Is Ulquiorra Ticklish?,**_ **followed then by **_**Grimmjow's Worst Week. **_**Skai comes back in **_**Unlikely Allies from Opposing Sides**_**, which is TBU. Have fun with that!**

Well, this was weird.

Rukia poked me in the face with the hilt of her Zanpakutou, and here I was in Soul Society.

Question number one: What. The. HELL? Why do I know where I am?

Question number two: Where are Zoe and Rachel?

Question number three: Why am I only now realising that my prom dress looks like a Shinigami uniform?

None of these questions received answers.

Oh, well. I wandered around the small, village-like settlement of souls. They were all happy and unaware of their previous lives and deaths. Unlike me.

I remembered every detail of my life.

The car, skidding under my panicked hands to avoid the white cat.

Crashing through the guardrail, and hearing Zoe scream for the first time.

Waking up to Rukia, with my two best friends gone.

Oh, wait. That's just my death.

Anywho, I wandered through the streets, and then realised I was hungry.

Hungry.

And yet dead.

Starving, in fact.

I saw a figure ahead of me. Tall and imposing, in a black kimono. Well, mostly imposing. The image was ruined by the red pineapple hairdo.

A plan formed in my mind. He was carrying a loaf of bread. I had a knife. I was hungry.

Plan of action: Run up behind Pineapple Man, hold the knife to his throat, and steal the bread.

This was a horrible idea.

The instant I was behind him with the knife, he spun around with a sword in his hand. Great. Another Shinigami.

His Zanpakutou crashed against my thirteen-inch dagger, nearly disarming me. Instead, I kept my grip and slashed up and thrust down.

The Zanpakutou clattered out of his hands. I grabbed the loaf of bread and ran. He was obviously too startled to stop me, so I made it pretty far before he caught up with me.

In fact, I was sitting comfortably in an alleyway, gulping my bread, when he turned the corner.

"What do you think you're doing, stealing from a Shinigami?" His voice was full of anger and surprise.

"I was hungry," I said coolly. "You had food, and I took it. That's the way of life, isn't it?" I was surprised at the cheekiness of my answer.

"Not between your kind and Shinigami, it isn't."

"My kind?" I asked my voice getting dangerous. "One would think a grand lieutenant such as yourself wouldn't be so close-minded." I knew he was a lieutenant by his uniform, somehow.

His face screwed up into an angry snarl, and he looked ready to explode at my impertinence.

I grinned and tossed my long, purple ponytail behind me. "I'm just joking, what's your problem?"

"Ooh, who'd you find, Renji?" A high-pitched voice cooed from the street. "Is she pretty?" A tall, ginger woman walked up, wearing the same uniform as Renji. Another lieutenant.

Renji's face went red. "Shut up, Rangiku. She stole from me and escaped."

The woman didn't appear to care much. "If she stole food from you, she's probably hungry. And you know what that means." She gave him a look.

"I doubt she was hungry. She probably just wanted food for the taste."

"Excuse me?" I piped up from behind them. "I'm still here, you know. You could just ask me."

"She makes a good point, Renji. Are you afraid?" The woman called Rangiku had light dancing in her eyes.

"Fine!" Renji growled. "Girl, were you hungry, or did you just steal for fun?"

"I wouldn't steal for fun, Lieutenant," I said carefully. "In fact, I was starving. I haven't eaten a thing since I got here."

"Got where?" Renji said suspiciously.

"Soul Society, of course. The last thing I ate was dinner before driving off that cliff."

"You remember your first life?"

"Of course I do. Is that strange?"

"Very," said Rangiku from behind him. "Most souls have their memories cleaned out before being reborn here."

Renji took a closer look at me. "Why are you dressed somewhat like a Shinigami?" he asked, confused

"Oh, I was going to Prom, and my friend wore Arrancar colors, and I wore this."

The two lieutenants started. "You know about hollows and things?"

"Of course," I said. "My friends and I know all about hollows, and Shinigami, and arran-" Renji cut me off.

"I'm taking you up to the Academy," he said forcefully. "You obviously have insanely high spiritual pressure to know these things."

**A/N: End chapter one! Skai is off to the Academy to learn to be a Shinigami! Now what will happen? Will she ever reunite with Zoe and Rachel?**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: If I owned Bleach, Nnoitra would be called "that spoony bastard" WAY more often. Meaning at least once.** **A/N: Skai enters the Academy and aggravates Renji far more than we could possibly have imagined. Also, I use the Japanese honorifics occasionally, and the Japanese terms as often as possible (Shinigami, shunpo, taicho, etc).** I was led through the streets until an enormous, beautiful building was in sight. This was the Academy. "That's the Academy," Renji said. I rolled my eyes. "Did you honestly think I didn't realise that?" "You never know," Renji replied. I could see him getting more and more aggravated. We walked through the Academy's campus, coming to a halt outside the main doors. Students streamed in and out, wearing ridiculous red and white clothing. I hoped never to have to wear that. Up the stairs we went, weaving through clusters of students. Renji only caused a slight roadblock, as students stopped and stared at the lieutenant. We came to a stop again outside a much simpler door. Renji knocked once. A deep voice responded. "Come in." We walked into the room, and an ancient-looking man greeted us. Renji bowed, and I followed suit. Sort of. "Koruba-sama." Renji paused to wait for the man's reaction. He looked up. "Yes, Lieutenant Abarai?" "I have a favor to ask." "And what would that be?" "This girl, she has intense reiatsu. And she remembers her previous life. She's new to the Society, and I was wondering-" The old man cut him off. "I understand, Renji. You want me to take her into the Academy to become a Shinigami." Renji looked down. "Yes." "And that I will, once I hear her story from her own mouth." He looked at me pointedly. I started, and then realised he wanted me to talk. I cleared my throat and began to speak. "I died in a car crash. I was driving my two friends and myself to Senior Prom, when a white cat appeared in the road. I swerved to avoid it, and then we drove through the guardrail and off a cliff. When I came to, I was a soul, and my friends were gone. I was sent here by Rukia Kuchiki, and arrived yesterday. "I was running around for a while when I realised I was hungry. And dead. I also realised that I still had the knife I always carry with me. So, spotting Lieutenant Abarai here-" I stopped and grinned at him. He glared back. "who was carrying food, I robbed him at knifepoint and ran off. And now I'm here. Sir." The man called Koruba was stunned as I watched him take in all that in at once. Then, he took a deep breath and began to speak. "I will take you in. You shall begin in the basic classes. Your first lesson will take place the day after tomorrow. You are dismissed." He stood and bowed. "Goodbye, Lieutenant Abarai, miss-" He cut himself off. "Do you have a name?" I rolled my eyes and smiled. "Of course I have a name. I am Skai Chirashi." Koruba smiled. "Goodbye, Chirashi-kun." We left the office, and Renji and I walked back down the stairs. We stopped yet again at the great doors. "Um..." I had no idea what to do next. "So do I get a room, or a uniform, or flipping _anything_?" Renji started. "Oh yeah, that! Well, I should probably take you to the outfitters for uniforms, and then find you a room." "Let's do that, then." We set off for the fourth time, this time down a flight of stairs and into a small, brightly lit room. "Knock, knock?" I said as we crossed the threshold. A woman came up to us. "What can I do for you, dear?" She sounded like someone's overprotective grandmother. "I apparently need uniforms," I said. "Can you help?" "Ooh, yes," the woman said excitedly. "I almost never get orders in the middle of a term. Are you new?" "Yeah, I am." She led me all the way into the room. "I'll need to measure you, dear." The woman was now bustling about, grabbing a uniform off of a shelf, along with pins and a measuring tape. "Put this on, will you?" She thrust the uniform into my arms and continued moving about. I stripped, careful of my knife and high heels, and pulled on the ugly red uniform. It somehow fit like a dream. I turned towards the door, where Renji was staring at me, his face a shade of red that could contest that of his hair. "What? Does it clash with my hair?" I cocked my hip out and set my hand against it, my face contorting into an expression of disgust and judgement. "N-nothing," he stammered, still pineapple-hair-red in the face. That was a wonderful sight: Lieutenant Renji Abarai, his face indistinguishable from his hair, and all because of me. "Great," I heard him mutter, looking away from me. "We've got another Rangiku on our hands." "I have ears, you know." Blood shot to his face again, and I laughed. **A/N: End chapter two. Skai is really nothing like Rangiku, she just forgot that Renji was there.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: Come to think of it, I don't actually own Bleach. Huh.**

**A/N: And on with the show! Story, whatever you want to call it. I don't care.**

Two days later, I started classes. I didn't exactly give my instructors my undivided attention, which is not like me at all, so I tended to notice a slow buildup of power around me. With this power came a strange, purple glow around me.

"Chirashi-kun!" The sharp voice of my professor startled me out of my reiatsu-trance-thing. A ball of purple energy formed in front of me and blasted the professor off of his feet.

My eyes widened. I had never seen anything like that. This reiatsu was insane!

If I couldn't control it, then how would I ever become a Shinigami?

The professor came to, stood up, and dragged me out into the hallway. "Chirashi-kun, what do you think you were doing in there?"

"I honestly have no idea," I replied. "I guess your lecture on the proper way to perform a soul burial just wasn't interesting enough. I zoned out, and then I exploded."

"Is that so?"

"Yes, sir."

"Hmm." The professor was obviously contemplating something seriously. "I will test you on soul burials tomorrow, and if you pass, you will leave this class and move on to Zanpakutou training."

"Yes, sir."

To make a long story short, I passed the soul burial test.

My Zanpakutou is a long, slender blade. Its handguard is a star with thirteen points, just as my knife is thirteen inches. The tip was curved like that of a broadsword more than a katana. Its sheath was standard black, but I turned it purple with a few chemicals. The hilt was alternating silver and sapphire. The nerd in me decided it wasn't enough, so, using my knife, I carved an Elvish phrase along the sheath, and turned it silver with more chemicals.

"You must meet your blade in your mind. Only then will you discover its name." My Zanpakutou trainer was Yasuo Koruba himself.

I spent an hour concentrating on my blade, until, finally, something happened. My mind seemed to slip inside itself, and a tall figure stood ahead of me.

It was female and humanoid, wearing flowing silvery robes and a circlet of silver around her brow, and it looked vaguely scaly.

"Who are you?" I asked as carefully as I could.

"I am your Zanpakutou." Her voice was deeper than I had expected, and it echoed through the emptiness of the desert we stood in.

"Do you have a name?" I was already impatient.

"You shall know it only if you are worthy of it."

"And how will you know if I am worthy of it- ah, um... What did you say your name was?"

"You will not get away with that as easily as you expect. To know my name, you must first defeat me."

"Oh." That was disappointing. "That's it?"

"You must defeat me with naught but your own small blade." The Zanpakutou in my hands vanished, to be replaced by my dagger.

"Easy-peasy," I said, and stripped off my uniform. Underneath, as usual, I wore a layer of black leather. Don't ask why, it's just comfortable.

This would hopefully be as easy as I thought it would be.

Wait a minute, I thought as the embodiment of my blade flew towards me. If this is my mind, then can't I think my way out of this?

Just as the blade would have cleaved me in half, I thought myself away from her. An instant later, I was ten feet to the left, exactly where I had sent myself. My theory was correct!

"And so you have mastered shunpo," the cool, deep voice of my blade murmured.

"Mastered what in the who now?"

The blade crashed towards me again, and I thought myself three inches to the left and brought up my blade arm. The Zanpakutou slid off of it cleanly, and I aimed a stab at her ribs. Again, her blade struck out, colliding with mine.

Our blades clashed again and again, thirteen-point star against thirteen-inch knife.

_She is a queen,_ I thought. _A queen of some sort or another._

Her blade slid towards me, and I shunpoed away yet again. However, the Zanpakutou glided smoothly into my arm, and yet I felt nothing.

_Queen. She is a queen._

Sudden, sharp pain shot through my left arm.

_Untouchable blade. Untouchable queen._

_Untouchable queen._

I realised something then. Her name would be in Japanese. Duh. Why didn't I think of that earlier?

"Antatchaburu Joo!" I shouted.

Her eyes widened. The blade was removed from my arm. It clattered to the floor.

I kept thinking, my mind racing. If I could _guess_ my Zanpakutou's name, then couldn't I guess my shikai release?

I grabbed up the blade and held it against Antatchaburu Joo's neck. "I believe I've won this round, Untouchable Queen."

She sighed. "Indeed you have. You are worthy of me, and no more. Your shikai will be nearly impossible to guess."

"How did you know that's what I was thinking about?"

"Are we not in your mind?" Antatchaburu Joo smiled. "Leave now, if you wish to live."

"I'm pretty sure I'm the one holding the sword to your throat," I snarled.

"Go." The word resonated with power, so I thought up a door and exited my mind.

"Well?" Yasuo Koruba's voice startled me.

"Well what?" I challenged without thinking.

"Have you discovered the name of your Zanpakutou?"

"Oh. That. Yes, I have."

Awkward silence followed.

"And it is..." Koruba prompted.

"Oh. Antatchaburu Joo."

"Untouchable Queen," he mused. "Strange name. I wonder what your shikai will look like."

"Can I try to find out?"

"No," Koruba said firmly. "If you have only just now learned her name, you must wait to discover her release."

I huffed and started to bow out of the office. "Wait." Koruba's command stopped me mid-bow. I straightened up, and he continued to speak as he wrote a note. "Bring this to your swordplay instructor," he said, handing me a folded slip of paper. "We will meet this time every week and work on controlling your reiatsu."

"Yes, sir." I bowed out of the office.

**A/N: Just so you know, the timeline of this series is way fucked up from what actually happened. Sorry, it was necessary.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: If I owned Bleach, Yumichika would wear a chef hat way more often.**

**A/N: Hello, fandom! This timeline is incredibly fucked up. Just so you know.**

I arrived at swordplay, and then realised that I was wearing my black leather and carrying my uniform. Knowing this, I walked up to my instructor and handed her Koruba's note. "Why do you hold a Zanpakutou?" she asked.

"I have only acquired her now," I replied. "My extra classes with Koruba-sensei are with my Zanpakutou. Ma'am."

"I see." The master contemplated this strange information. "Can you wield it?"

"Her."

"What was that?"

"My Zanpakutou is female."

"Ah. Can you wield her?"

"Not really, ma'am. I can fight with a knife, though. That's what I defeated her with."

"What do you mean, defeated?"

"I had to defeat her to know her name."

The master looked even more confused. "And what is her name?"

"Antatchaburu Joo."

She looked startled. Apparently, my Zanpakutou's name was unusual.

"Go join your classmates."

I bowed and walked over to the rest of the class. They were all glaring at me. I could tell what they were thinking.

"Showoff." The voice of a tall blonde guy broke my concentration on not smirking, and I smirked.

Oh, I am a jackass.

I sat down, and then the class commenced. It was more boring than hell itself. We sat there while the instructor blathered on and on and on about proper grip and how to draw the blade.

I gave up on listening and entered my mind again through a grand pair of French doors. Just because. Antatchaburu Joo was watching me closely as I strode toward her confidently. "I want to learn my shikai," I said loudly, hoping my physical body hadn't just said the same thing.

"You are not worthy yet." The woman's voice carved straight through my self-esteem and my face fell.

"Why not?" I asked, putting on an act of perfect girly disappointment. "I thought you would let me after I found your name, Antatchaburu Joo."

The woman started at the sound of her name.

"Can I call you Tatchi?" She frowned. "Pleeeeeeease?"

No response other than frowning.

"Ok, Tatchi!"

I drew my Zanpakutou. "I'll fight you for your shikai!"

"That is not an option."

"If I win, you give me a clue. OK?"

Tatchi sighed. "Alright, fine." She drew her own identical blade.

Immediately, she struck, and I unconsciously shunpoed away.

"You cannot use shunpo in every fight. What would you do in a small space?" Her blade swished over my head, and the space suddenly shrank.

"This!" I raised my own blade and knocked hers out of her grip.

"Well then. That was far too easy."

Tatchi was stunned.

"What's my clue?" I asked, feigning a small child's excitement.

"With your strength, you are truly worthy of me." She held up her blade. "Divide and conquer, Antatchaburu Joo." The Zanpakutou shimmered with purply-gold reiatsu and split into two blades, each around two feet long.

"You must master your blades yourself." Tatchi's voice was awed and stern at the same time.

"OK!" I said. "That gives me something to channel my reiatsu with! Thanks!" I opened a door in my mind and exited.

Barely three minutes had passed. I was still sitting in the swordplay class, listening to the droning of the master.

"Chirashi-kun!" The sharp voice startled me. OK, maybe I wasn't still listening to the droning.

"What's up?" I asked, and then remembered how Japanese honorifics worked. "Sensei," I added hastily.

"What did you learn during this lesson?"

Oh, great. Getting picked on by a teacher right at a moment I wasn't paying attention. Racking my brain, I somehow realised that I knew exactly what she had said in the three minutes I spent learning my shikai release.

"A katana can be held in one hand or two, as the hilt is a hand-and-a-half style. However, you must draw it with one hand. The hand opposite the sheath, to be precise. To draw, grasp the hilt with your thumb closest to the guard, and pull up with your entire arm while dropping your elbow down, so that once the katana is fully drawn, it is in a guarding stance." I went on for a bit, describing how to switch between a one-handed and a two-handed grip.

She was stunned.

"That was word-for-word what I just said." The instructor shook her head. "I could have sworn you were miles away."

I resisted that nagging thought against smirking and smirked.

"Could you perhaps demonstrate the proper way to draw a katana from its sheath?"

Startled, I stood. And then I realised that my Zanpakutou was strapped to my back. I smiled and gave a new explanation, with no clue where the words were coming from. "In my case, I must draw from behind me, still with my thumb closest to the guard, and move my arm in a circle, dropping my elbow in front of me the instant the tip of the blade leaves the sheath." I did so, exactly as stated.

She struck almost before my Zanpakutou had left its sheath, but my guard was up all the way, and I shunpoed a half-yard to the left, raising my metal blade to meet her wooden one.

It shattered.

Yet again, my instructor was stunned.

"If you have already mastered shunpo and swordsmanship, you do not belong in this classroom," she said, still in awe of my fabulousness.

She bowed to me. I nodded back and left the room.

Well, with all this free time, I could definitely master my shikai, and maybe get around to Bankai.

**A/N: Why is Skai so flipping fabulous? Technical answer: because that's how I wrote her. Decent answer: I have no fucking clue. Also, by the way, I am inventing all the things! Welcome to the world of I-Have-No-Effing-Clue Fanfiction!**


End file.
